


from the ashes we left

by Silver_Queen_DoS



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Post canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23540425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver_Queen_DoS/pseuds/Silver_Queen_DoS
Summary: Alex stops breathing. For a second, he’s sure he’s fourteen again, at the beach with Sabina in Saint Pierre, watching a ghost disembark.Surely it’s impossible for the same scene to play out twice.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 150
Collections: Gen Freeform Exchange2020





	from the ashes we left

**Author's Note:**

  * For [galimau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/galimau/gifts).



> Well I've been running from the ashes we left  
> Forgiveness speaks for itself but how can I forget  
> ~ Mumford and Sons, 42

Alex slides his passport over the desk and hopes, _for once_ , that it doesn’t result in an intelligence agency — or worse — knocking on the door of his hotel room. 

The CIA had never _rescinded_ their agreement that he could travel and live in America, even if Alex had ended up leaving the Pleasure family in San Francisco and returning to live in London, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. If there's one thing he's learnt, it's that the agencies keep their promises when it suits them and don't when it doesn't. 

_I’ve let them know you’re travelling on personal business_ , Crawley had said, when Alex had let MI6 know he would be unavailable for the next few weeks. _I’m sure it will go smoothly._

Technically and on paper, Alex is employed by MI6 these days but that fact hardly seems to change much in their dynamic. Things like _working hours_ and _vacation time_ are more or less _suggestions_ than laws to them. This time, they’d been strangely cooperative about it all — going as far as to buy his plane tickets. Business class ones at that. 

Alex has the feeling it’s a favour he’ll be paying back eventually but if it gets him through the airport… 

“There you go. Please enjoy your stay in Hawaii,” the customs agent says, with a steady polite smile. She stamps the page and hands it back. There isn't so much as a flicker to her expression to say she's noticed anything unexpected. 

“Thanks,” Alex says, slinging his backpack over his shoulder and making his way past the desk towards the baggage claim. The flight had been seventeen hours from London to Honolulu and he's exhausted. He grabs his bag, checks that the lock is secure, and heads for the exit. 

He surveys the crowds of people — holiday makers, students on their spring break, business men and women moving briskly around him — out of pure habit. 

He doesn’t expect there to be anyone waiting for him. 

But there is. She’s taller than he remembers. Her long brown hair is fashionably streaked with blonde, and she’s wearing a floating floral dress and strappy sandals, looking every inch the attractive tourist. She’s tapping away on her phone, glancing up intermittently at the travellers streaming past her. 

“Sabina,” he says, not quite managing to sound exasperated. He's too glad to see her. “I told you, you didn’t have to come get me. I could make it to the hotel.” 

“Alex!” Sabina cries and crashes into him, her bored demeanour transforming straight into enthusiasm. Her arms come up around his neck. She’s warm and she smells like flowers and for a long, long second… she’s wholly, terribly unfamiliar to him. How long has it been since he’s seen her? Two years? Three? 

He hugs her back. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” she says, more mischievous than scolding. She draws back a fraction, her hands braced against his biceps and examines him, as if looking for ways in which he might be hurt or about to _get_ hurt. “You get into so much trouble; I thought you might vanish between here and there.” 

“No vanishing,” Alex promises — even though he’s already wondering whether he _can_ promise that. It’s never his choice. “I’m here strictly on vacation. Ready to celebrate… whatever it is we're celebrating.” 

Here because she’d invited him. Because she was a regular university student, doing regular university student things and wanted Alex to at least pretend alongside her. Surely he can manage a few weeks of that. 

Sabina laughs, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “It’s spring break!” she says, and her accent is terribly American on the vowels. “Everyone is at the beach. Come with me and I’ll introduce you.” 

They swing by the hotel, where Alex drops his bags off and switches to a t-shirt much more suited to the local weather. He slides his phone — an MI6 special device — into the back pocket of his jeans and fishes out the present he'd brought for her. 

“Sabina,” he says and rolls it between his palms. “I swear I didn’t come here on a mission. But if something does happen…” 

Sabina’s face softens. “There’s always something with you, Alex,” she says, not _quite_ resigned, just understanding. “Just… be careful, will you?” 

He nods. “I always am,” he says. “But, uh, I had something made for you.” 

Or rather, he had made it for her. With Smithers gone, the MI6 gadget department is much less forthcoming with new and inventive presents for Alex — and they certainly wouldn’t give him anything to give to a friend. But he _does_ have a reputation for destroying all his equipment and he’s spent the last few years quickly learning how to make do with what he can get his hands on. He's no Smithers himself, but he can manage a little bit of creativity. 

“It’s a personal locator beacon, basically,” he says, holding it out. It looks like — is disguised as — a ring, thin and unremarkable. “A panic button. Depress the two stones on the side to activate it. It’ll send out a signal to MI6 and on the nearest search and rescue frequency, so someone can come and get you.” 

MI6 has a… questionable record with answering his panic buttons, even when they _know_ he has one. Cynically, he thinks that the search and rescue option might have better luck. 

“Like when you go hiking,” Sabina says, taking it carefully out of his hands and looking at it. “Or boating. Is it bad if I say that it makes me feel better?” 

Alex manages a smile for her. “Dunno,” he says. “The gadgets always make me feel better.” He hesitates then continues. “The main stone also explodes. Just twist it right off and throw it.” Smithers had once given him an exploding ear stud and Alex had managed to score another one for a mission recently. And managed to safely disassemble it. The beacon would have been _enough_ but he’d wanted to give her something offensive too. 

_This_ time her expression is a little more exasperated. “I’m not sure I want to wear something that will explode,” Sabina says, holding the ring a little more carefully. 

“It’s been in my pocket the whole way here,” Alex says, reassuringly. “It’s perfectly safe. Unless you break the stone off, I guess. Then you might have a bit of a problem on your hands.” 

Still, she slides the ring on and flexes her fingers. “Alright,” she says. “But you better believe I’ll use it if I have to!” 

Sabina had been the one to attack Damian Cray, on Air Force One. The one who had ultimately destroyed all the missiles. “I’d believe it,” Alex agrees. 

She smiles at him and then gestures imperiously at the door. “Now! The beach is waiting for us!” 

They walk — it’s not far from the hotel to the beach and it’s a beautiful place. The water is blue and the white sand stretches off into the distance and every inch of it is crammed with people. Some thirty of those are Sabina’s friends from university. They’ve piled towels and sun umbrellas together, and set up a volleyball net. There’s a giant cooler and everyone seems to have red plastic cups of drink and generally they just seem to be having the times of their lives, young and in the sun. 

“Hey everyone!” Sabina says, losing a touch of her poise to more youthful excitement. “This is Alex! Alex, this is Catherine, and Terry,” she waves at the two who seem to have saved her a spot, and then goes on to introduce everyone near them with the kind of exact memory for names that a spy would kill for. She's thriving at university, clearly. 

Alex smiles and nods and waves. 

“Sabina wouldn’t tell us much about you,” Catherine says, teasing. “You must be very mysterious.” 

“She’s just worried I’ll cause an international incident and she’ll have to deny knowing me,” Alex deadpans. 

Sabina smacks him in the arm. “Do not cause an international incident, Alex!” 

Her friends laugh, thinking it’s a joke. 

Later that night — much later, after the crowd has gone from beach to pub to nightclub to hotel — Sabina has an arm looped around his shoulder as they make their way back to their rooms. She’s more than a little tipsy but in a great mood. 

“I am sorry,” she says, out of the blue. “I should have known you wouldn’t enjoy this.” 

Alex shrugs, careful not to dislodge her. “I’m enjoying myself,” he says. “Maybe not as much as _you_ , but with a few fewer drinks.” 

Sabina laughs, merrily. “We’re twenty one, Alex,” she says. “A few drinks won’t do any harm. But, well. I was thinking. Do you want to go somewhere else?” 

“Somewhere else?” he repeats. “What’s wrong with here?” 

She wobbles slightly, and he shifts his grip on her waist to ensure she doesn’t fall. “You don’t like it,” she says, sounding far too certain. “I should have thought of it before we made plans. But we can go to one of the other islands. Somewhere a little quieter.” 

She… isn’t wrong. There are too many people here, too rowdy and noisy. He doesn’t fit in and it’s _exhausting._

“You came here to be with your friends,” he deflects. “I’ll be alright.” 

Sabina shakes her head. “I’ll see my friends all year at uni,” she says. “And _honestly_ , I don’t know most of these people, anyway. This is just… everyone who wanted to come to Hawaii. I won’t be missing out on much.” 

“If you’re sure,” Alex says, trying to sound reluctant and not horribly relieved. 

“Yes,” Sabina says, over the top pompous, trying to sound authoritative when she needs help to walk in a straight line. “We’ll go off on our own. Our little adventure,” she giggles. 

Alex rolls his eyes. “Hopefully not _too_ adventurous.” 

* * *

“This,” Sabina says, satisfied, “is the life.” 

She settles her oversized sunglasses on her face and leans back on her aggressively colourful beach towel. 

Alex sets down the bottle of sunscreen and starts counting down until she asks him to do her back again. His own swimming shirt is sticking to his skin, but with his scars he doesn't dare take it off. “It’s nice,” he agrees. “Quieter.” 

Kauai still has tourists — enough of them that Sabina and Alex are just more faces in a crowd — but in a much more manageable number. They have an entire patch of beach to themselves and Alex has already been surfing without worrying about hitting swimmers. Out further in the bay there are a dozen ships bobbing around, from small dinghies to oversize yachts. 

He watches one gently cruise towards the harbour, a sleek white yacht that cuts through the water with ease and without hurry. It pulls into dock and ties down and a man in a white t-shirt steps easily from boat to boardwalk. 

The world goes quiet, calm and still. 

Alex stops breathing. For a second, he’s sure he’s fourteen again, at the beach with Sabina in Saint Pierre, watching a ghost disembark. 

Surely it’s impossible for the same scene to play out _twice._

“Alex?” Sabina asks, jerking his attention back to the present. 

The man is gone. It’s crazy. There are billions of people in the world. How many of them are men? How many with that same white-blonde hair? How many with the same confident walk? 

Enough that Alex _must_ be wrong. 

“I—" he draws in a shallow breath. His chest feels tight. The old gunshot wound over his heart feels heavy and he presses a palm against it and rubs, as if he can alleviate the ache. “Sorry, Sab. I think there’s something I need to go and check out.” 

Sabina winces. She touches the ring on her finger. “If you don’t call me, I’ll use it,” she says. 

It sounds, he reflects, a little bit more like a threat than a reassurance. 

“I will,” he says. “Give me… three hours. If there’s nothing to see, I’ll be back long before then.” And if there _is_ something, and he can’t call within that time, then chances are he’ll need the backup. 

He slips away before she can protest, moving down the beach. He doesn’t hurry, just ambles along at the pace of a tourist on holiday — looking around so much only because the location is beautiful. He even stops and takes a photo of the ocean with his phone, the yacht visible near the side of the picture. The image will be backed up immediately to the secure, encrypted cloud his phone connects to in case it’s destroyed. 

The boat seems deserted — no henchmen this time — but there are a copious number of people on the pier, talking and chatting and sitting on the edge to dangle their legs in the water. If he tries to approach the yacht now, he'll be seen, without a doubt. 

And that’s without remembering the _last_ time this happened. Getting on the boat might be his last mistake this time. 

Instead, he turns towards the village, following the path away from the pier. It’s moderately busy — some the brisk practicality of locals, others with the dawdling pace of tourists — enough people moving that he can’t glimpse his target. 

By the time he reaches the shops, there’s still no sign. If Alex were anyone else, he might start to think he had imagined it. But it only makes him _more_ certain that he was right. 

If it _was_ someone else… If it was someone who didn't know how to avoid a tail... 

He buys a bottle of coke at a café and leans against the railing off the outdoor seating area — just another tourist enjoying the sunshine and taking a break. It’s a good position to watch the comings and goings of the entire square so, _surely_ , if anyone were to pass through… 

And then someone leans against the railing beside him. 

“Hello, Alex,” says Yassen Gregorovich. 

He’s far enough away that they would both have to _move_ to attack, but Alex remembers how fast he was, how quickly he could strike. But— 

If he’d meant to strike, why let Alex know he was here? Why approach? He'd done a good job slipping away — he could have continued to evade. Could have simply ambushed Alex when he inevitably went looking further. 

Alex spins the neck of his bottle through his fingers as he thinks. “Do I need to check my house for bombs?” 

Yassen doesn’t blink an eye. “If you do,” he says, “it has nothing to do with me. I’m retired.” He rests his forearms against the railing, a glass dangling loosely in his fingers. 

Alex doesn’t mistake it for _being_ at ease, or unprepared, but it’s still a statement of intent. Probably. 

The thing is. He hadn’t exactly _thought_ about this part. Either he would find that it was true, or he would find that it was false. And the way _true_ usually went… he would stumble across the _why_ as well. 

Talking hadn’t really come into it. 

“They told me you were dead,” Alex says. It feels odd to speak so plainly in the bright sunshine, but no one is listening to them. “Was that just me, or is that the general…” he waves a hand loosely, vaguely. 

Yassen takes a drink. “It _is_ a misunderstanding I like to foster but I doubt that everyone believes it. Particularly MI6, if they were the ones to clean up after Cray. Although... what happened at the time is rather unclear to me.” 

Somehow, Alex can’t find it within himself to be _surprised_ that MI6 probably lied to him about it. He doesn’t even find himself particularly surprised that someone else has cheated death. He had, Jack had, why not Yassen too? 

_You killed Ian Rider. One day I’ll kill you._

The anger had been real at the time, but now that Alex reaches for it he finds that it’s gone. Gutted, like a fire that has burnt itself out of fuel. 

He’s sick and tired of killing people. He can't imagine _wanting_ to do it again. 

“Hmm,” is all he says. 

There’s a long pause. Alex watches him out of the corner of his eye and can tell that Yassen is watching him back, a kind of stalemate hovering in the air between them. 

“And you?” Yassen says, breaking the silence eventually. “Why are you here?” 

Alex-at-fourteen would have never been able to outwait anyone. He had been too desperate for answers, had had too little control over the situations he found himself in. It’s odd to think he’s changed since then, especially when confronted face-to-face with one of the reasons he’s even here at all. 

“Vacation,” he says, lazily. He wonders if Yassen believes him. And then, “though if MI6 doesn’t know that you’re here, they _do_ know that _something_ is.” 

Maybe he’s pretending he has more backup than he does. Maybe he just _wants_ to believe that Yassen is retired and will do nothing. He wants to believe that _someone_ can just walk away from this life. Maybe it’s not fair, or just, or deserved but… what in life is? 

“I couldn’t say,” Yassen says. “Part of being dead is refraining from contacting my former associates. If they’re up to something, I’d much rather not be here for it.” 

“I’d rather you not be here for it either,” Alex says, because that’s one less person for him to fight. He doesn't think it had just been the fact he had been young that had made Yassen seem so intimidating. “I sure won’t stop you leaving.” 

_Something_ flashes through those ice blue eyes. “But you won’t leave yourself,” Yassen says, so certain that it doesn’t sound like a guess at all. “You still work for MI6. Why?” 

Alex presses his palm against his chest, over the bullet wound that SCORPIA had given him as a parting gift. Did Yassen know any of that? Or was that included with cutting contact? 

It seems far too much to try and explain. 

He shrugs. “I guess it’s just my destiny.” 

The words are surprisingly bitter. 

_You get addicted to the danger_ , Mrs Jones had tried to explain to him, to tell him that he needed to go back to a normal life, as if it were still an option for him. But that’s not it; the danger has nothing to do with it. Alex just _sees things_ that normal people miss — he can spot trouble a mile out — and is nearly always the only one who can do something about it. He’s never been able to turn away, is trapped as much by his own nature as by MI6’s machinations. 

But there’s no denying that the machinations exist, either. 

And repeating Yassen’s words back to him, no matter that they’re a dig, just brings them all to mind. The whole sorry mess of it all. 

_Did you mean it? Did you know?_ Alex wants to ask, and doesn’t. Does it matter if Yassen had sent him to SCORPIA, to his near death, on purpose or not? Alex had still taken him at his word and gone. Is maybe making the same mistake again. 

“Besides,” Alex says, turning his attention to picking the label off his drink. “I had to clear my arrival here with two separate government agencies simply for a holiday. The last time I flew anywhere without doing that, I wound up with the Jihaz Amn al Daoula knocking on my hotel room door. Don’t get me wrong, I like the ESSS, but I have an aversion to being hunted down by heavily armed men in suits.” 

“There are ways around that,” Yassen says, with the barely hidden puzzlement of a man who has probably been on no-fly lists since before he hit adulthood. Who has probably never held a passport under his own name in his entire life. 

Alex huffs something that might be a laugh. “I skipped Spy 101 _How To Fake Your Identity_ and went straight to _Defend the World from Egomaniacs,_ ” he says. “Everyone knows who I am now. I’m stuck with it.” 

Yassen makes a small hum of acknowledgement. He swallows down the last of his drink and puts the glass on one of the empty tables near them. He nods, friendly, distant, and steps away. “Enjoy your vacation,” he says. 

Alex salutes him with his bottle. “Enjoy your retirement,” he says. He watches the assassin walk away and hopes it’s real. 

He takes his mobile out of his pocket and dials Sabina. She answers on the first ring, as though she’d been waiting for him. “Alex?” 

“It’s probably fine,” Alex says. “I hope.” 

He catches sight of movement, across the square. Sabina’s voice falls out of focus as he concentrates. 

“Actually,” he says with a massive sigh. “Something else has come up. I’ll call you back in the next three hours, okay?” 

* * *

Later — much, much later — when he finally gets back to London, a little bloody and bruised but in one piece, there’s a package waiting for him. 

A brown cardboard box, no distinguishing features, with a courier label stuck to the top. 

Alex sighs and fetches the mail scanning gadget MI6 had given him, guaranteed to find bugs and mail bombs. It comes back clean, so he uses his keys to slice the tape open. 

Inside it are a half dozen passports from various countries. Somehow Alex isn’t surprised to flip them open and find his own face staring back — some with different colour hair, or facial hair, or altered subtly different enough to fool facial recognition while still looking like him. 

There’s a single A4 page in the bottom of the box, printed in Times New Roman font with no embellishments and no identifying details, is a link to a website, a decryption key, and instructions for how to order _more._ Other sites, keys, passcodes. Little underworld secrets that Alex would have never known. 

It isn't signed. Of course it isn't. And yet there's only one person it could have ever come from. 

Alex touches them thoughtfully, a little startled and a little touched. 

He doesn’t… he doesn’t _need_ them, exactly. Not yet. 

But it’s a little bit like the difference between being on an out of control airplane and finding a parachute. 

He could jump, if he wanted to. 

If he needed to. 

He memorises the codes, burns the letter and hides the passports. 

Not yet. But maybe one day. 


End file.
